


Self-Care

by liminality



Category: Celeste (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety, F/F, I've been writing for Undertale too long, Introspection, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), References to Depression, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, mental health, self-deprecation, semi-loose following of events, someone was gonna eventually, sorry fam, toying with game mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21759511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminality/pseuds/liminality
Summary: You wish that the piece of yourself dogging your footsteps was more like the feather; strong and resolute. You wish she felt like you could do this. Not whatever jumbled energy it was that kept colliding into you, day after day. A fight with every footstep.
Relationships: Madeline/Badeline (Celeste)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 104





	Self-Care

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to do a fic that explores the mental health side of things that this game does so well at bringing to life. I also want Madeline and Badeline to hold hands. This is the culmination of that. 
> 
> It ran away on me. Turns out that ten thousand words wasn’t enough to convey everything I wanted to? Canon compliance definitely falls apart during the Northern Lights scene, so keep in mind that “loose canon compliance” tag.
> 
> I do have plans to continue this- there's about 20k more that could have happened here. I’m hesitant to say when that’ll happen. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it, these past few weeks!

* * *

**I discover a smile I didn't know I had, I uncover a feeling that I didn't know existed in me...**

**I see myself.**

* * *

You googled mountaineering before you came. For a couple of hours. Maybe a little less. Clicking on article after article, following up that search with a brief rundown of rock and ice climbing techniques. You looked at the equipment recommended (ignoring every reference of  _ essential  _ and  _ necessary _ that tried to jump out at you) and grabbed yourself whatever was readily available in a nearby small town; climbing pack, thermals, puff coat, proper boots, rations, water bottle… 

Not much else. The salesperson had looked at your clear lack of knowledge and greased his palms, sending you out of the shop with things fancier (and expensive) than you needed. The way he’d spoken to you made it clear that he didn’t think you’d be going out on the snow any time soon, nevermind a mountain.

His lack of belief met yours in a way that ignited your temper. Everything had been thrown into the back of the car. Within ten minutes, you’d hit the highway. In half an hour, you’d be at the mountain. You’d show him. You’d show your boss, and your coworkers, and your mom.  _ Her. _

Yourself.

You may have been a little hasty. Dumping your backpack on the ground, you rip the goggles from your face, eyes shut tight. Yesterday had culminated in the most intense of headaches- Theo hadn’t failed to notice the way you kept rubbing your eyes.

“Not wearing your eye gear enough?” He’d asked kindly; your nonplussed expression had, in turn, led to the most thorough lecture on snow glare and eye protection you could’ve asked for.

Or, not asked for.

The result was a loan of some spare goggles Theo had brought along, with stern instructions to keep them on your face for the majority of the day. Otherwise, the pain would get worse. And possibly become a long term problem.

Saving your eyes from future cataracts and cancer didn’t make them better  _ now.  _ The glasses gave the world around you a dull, sepia-tone; Theo said your eyes would hurt for a few days, max. Weird dreams and a restless night’s sleep added to the problem. 

You’re pretty sure the glasses aren’t helping.

Definitely not with the headache. Pushing your fringe out of your face, your stomach twists unpleasantly at how coarse the hair feels. Your brush is at the bottom of your pack somewhere, you should-

You don’t. You carefully open your eyes, just the slightest, grumbling under your breath at how  _ glaringly white  _ the world seems to be before angling yourself towards the nearest rockface, pressing your forehead into freezing stone with a sigh of abject relief. You may be sunburnt; Theo’d mentioned something about snow reflecting a bunch of UV at you, hence the whole eye situation, but you’re not sure how much stock you should put in the words of a stranger. Two relatively pleasant meetings hadn’t inspired that much trust.

Nice guys are always the ones who’ll laugh behind your back.

Even if he had absolutely no reason to be so nice. You might never meet again, so “borrow” wasn’t the right term for what he’d done. Given, with the loose reasoning that you could always give them back later if you went enough out of your way. That wasn’t the act of someone with ulterior motives.

He probably had one anyway. 

“Please, shut up.” You say, to absolutely no one. No one. It’s just you, and your stupid, pounding head, and your sore eyes, and legs that are freezing beneath a poor attempt at layering thermals beneath one ratty pair of jeans. 

You should’ve bought pants. You should’ve bought  _ gloves _ . What the hell were you thinking, trying to climb a mountain like this? Trying to  _ survive _ a mountain in this state?

It’s pretty clear to you that you should just turn around, and go  _ home.  _

The longer you think about it, the less it sounds like thoughts skating across your irate mind. The more it feels like someone whispering in your ear. So close they could rest their chin on your shoulder. Opening your eyes to look doesn’t help; the light catches you out, eyes going blurry as you once again waste your breath in a flurry of curses, wiping away tears until you can glare about yourself properly.

There’s no one there. Of course there isn’t. You’re being paranoid again. Haven’t stopped since you stepped foot on that death trap of a driveway. Last night’s wigged out dreams had made it worse.

The dreams weren’t even that surprising. You can deny it, but you know the truth- you’re the type to try and imagine your problems as an entirely separate being from yourself. If that’s what it takes to avoid accountability, then-

Shoving the goggles back on lets you open your eyes a little easier, the bright snow ahead staying in focus. Grudgingly, you admit they work. The world isn’t so glaringly bright. Equally grudging is the promise to put a little more faith in Theo if your eyes improve by tomorrow. 

Today, you’ll just have to grit your teeth and put up with taking it slow. If your head is pounding and your eyesight goes, you have to stop.

The fact that you got injured so quickly is surely all you need to get how foolish this whole expedition is. 

And yet you ignore the thought, slinging your backpack up over your shoulders as you grimly begin the long slog forward, jaw clenched. Eyes focused on the peaked roof of a building still high above you. You’re almost certain you won’t make it there today, not if you need to keep stopping like this; but that doesn’t mean it’s time to accept all the deprecating thoughts that come with that fact. 

_ Thoughts,  _ not facts. Loud and angry and mean enough to haunt your dreams with a sinister, sickly phantom of yourself as a physical representation, but they’re still just thoughts.

Shoving those aside, refusing to acknowledge them? That just makes this another day ending in ‘y’.

* * *

You don’t make it to the building by nightfall, though if you were stubborn (or outright suicidal) you could keep going before it’s pitch dark, close the gap some more.

What stops you is the campsite. Sheltered on two sides, it’s surprisingly well-stocked; a crate full of firewood and kindling, neatly arranged pit. Snow cleared off the wide span of stone around it. 

The only reasonable explanation is that Theo stopped here at some point today- that you’ve only made it as far as where he stopped for  _ lunch  _ nags at you like nothing else, but a few deep breaths are enough to get you working on stoking some nice, hot flames. It’s a good place to stop. A safe place to call it a day.

Part of you is impatient to keep going- just as much of you wants to turn tail and head home. At odds with yourself as you are, you can at least agree wholly on  _ something- _ trying to tackle a place this dangerous in the dark is a few screws looser than you are. You can keep warm, here; heat some of the food in your pack, even if it’s not supposed to be heated. Stay out of the wind and sip at a cup of melted snow whilst watching the sky transition through a glorious series of pinks and golds and blues, until star dappled blackness is all that’s left to stare at. 

It’s gorgeous out here. The sky. You’d never realized how few stars you saw on a nightly basis back in the city. Out here may as well be an entirely different world. It takes far too long to find the Big Dipper- you’re not even sure the stars you’re staring at are the right ones. There’s so much more to look at, your eyes are lost.

You’re lost.

And sort of...lonely now, you guess. You half wish you were back at the abandoned info booth, listening to your mom on the other end of the receiver. Nervously watching the telegraph pole, just in case it tried to eat you again. Or maybe sitting with Theo… he isn’t a bad guy. Funny, sometimes. Relaxed in a way that’s both irritating and admirable. You wish you could be like that.

You can’t. Knowing you, you never will.

“One night. Can you just shut up for  _ one night? _ ” Your tone is as exhausted as you feel. Slumping back, you use your pack as a pillow, lumpy and uncomfortable as it is. Beats the ground. Shove your hair out from beneath your back, grimacing when your fingers catch in the tangles. Another thing that can wait till tomorrow.

For the next five minutes, all you need to do is focus on not focusing. Don’t think. Just breathe. In and out, counting each second. As usual, it doesn’t feel right- you can’t remember if it’s supposed to be eight seconds in and five seconds out or vice versa, or maybe five to five, or eight to eight, so it winds up being some stilted amalgamation of all four. It leaves you unsettled and irritated, but you don’t think of anything else for a long while.

Maybe it works. You’ve spent more than one night laying in bed, going through the same process. Frustrated when you don’t quite remember what your therapist had told you, always promising to look it up later. It has to work, because sometimes you go from being in the middle of counting to opening your eyes at the sound of your alarm, sunlight streaming through the cracks of your blinds. 

Has to work, because you go from counting the numbers and watching the light of the fire flicker across the rock to your left to bolting upright, heart squeezing tight. There’s a howl in the distance. The fire is low, casting long shadows that don’t make you feel better, not even close. You think there’s a figure across from you, leaning forwards as you cringe away, grasping blindly for something to protect yourself.

You blink. The figure stays. 

“Oh god,” You say. Your lips purse, expression pulling into something that’s undoubtedly as unpleasant to look at as it is to feel. “I’m dreaming again.”

“How astute, darling.” That piece of you smiles, pasty skin all the more gaunt from poor lighting. She’s not a looker- even worse than you are, and that’s saying something. “Your self-awareness is  _ astounding _ . Nothing short of magical.”

You’re too tired for this. Too tired to give a damn about whatever the hell she’s insulting you for now.

“If you want to kill me again, just hurry up and do it.” You tell her flatly. “I’m not spending every night running away from you.”

That sickly sweet expression drops, lips drawing into a snarl. You’re more interested in her hair, a deep, rich purple that has a life of its own. Heavy locks seem to draw up around her, points almost sharp enough to pierce skin. Maybe they could.

It’s not something you’re eager to confirm.

“...Whatever, Madeline.” She drawls. Her hair falls limp around her. “You keep thinking that. In the meantime, maybe you’ll be kind enough to agree with me on something.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“Neither of us wants to go out to a pack of wolves.”

Your heart squeezes again, sharp enough to draw your hand over your chest. That piece of you smiles knowingly, meeting your eyes in something akin to a challenge as you try and formulate a reply. Something that doesn’t cower down; won’t leave her feeling smugly superior. If you do, she’ll take advantage of it. She already talks down at you.

Apparently, your silence speaks for you.

“That’s what I thought.” She stands, snatching a few more logs from the crate and shoving them into the center of the open flames, flicking a few pieces of kindling on top of them. “Someone has to pay attention tonight; if  _ you won’t _ , then it’s up to me. Like always.”

“Sorry, I forgot how meaningless a good night’s sleep is.” It’s so much easier to ignore her when she isn’t right in front of you. You’re still going to try, laying back down to give some illusion of confidence. Like there’s anything you could do if she decided to split into five different bodies again. At least your eyes feel okay; grainy, but the firelight doesn’t hurt so much. 

Looks like Theo knew what he was talking about.

“That hurts, sweetheart.” The other part of you sighs, poking the fire with her fingers. The heat doesn’t seem to bother her at all- not that you were concerned. Serve her right if it did. “Trusting a stranger over yourself. All I’m doing is looking out for you; we’ve had this discussion.”

“You let a telegraph pole eat me.” You roll your eyes, beyond irritated. “Ever think about that? Or  _ chasing me _ through a death trap? Or did you want to start with your attitude? Take your pick, we’ve got all night.”

“I can’t wait until you figure out how to pick your battles.” She tells you. Her hair is doing that again, drawing about her like great, ugly wings. Devil incarnate. “Life will be so much easier for me- and so much less  _ painful  _ for you.”

“Mm, there it is. All that trust I’m feeling, now that you’re threatening to hurt me.” You imagine giving her a golf clap, watching her hair shifting about agitatedly with no small amount of satisfaction. “You’re great at this. Really! I’m  _ this close _ to making friendship bracelets.”

“Don’t push your luck,  _ Madeline. _ ” She’s on her feet in less than a second, stepping over the fire- through the air, hovering above you with ill-contained fury not inches from your face. Doesn’t touch you- doesn’t need to. Lets you recoil back into the ground, like it’s going to gain you some distance. All she does is follow, still floating on nothing, purple-black locks weaving about you- smothering any glimpse of life outside of this. You. Her. “I’m only here because of you.  _ We’re  _ here because of  _ you!  _ So cut the victim act. Pretend you have some semblance of self-respect.”

Pretend, because you’ve never had that.

Given time, you might think up something to say back to her; but she’s so close, all you can think about is the last time she touched you. The empty, viciously satisfied look on her face when that contact  _ burned _ , forcing you to run faster with shaking arms and lungs refusing to take in air. 

Even now, you feel like you’re not getting enough air. It’s a conscious effort to keep from gasping like a fish on land, trying to pull in enough oxygen to calm down. Or so much that you spiral into another panic attack. What will trigger it faster, is it not breathing, or breathing too much, or is it the way your thoughts are beginning to race, adrift in icy winds with no tether?

You hate her, you think, refusing to meet her eyes any longer. You’re pretty sure you’ve never hated anyone more. That’s a tether. That’s the best tether there is. It’s so familiar, it may as well be home.

“I am you, buttercup. Your self-hate doesn’t surprise me anymore.” She pats your cheek, laughing when you scramble out from under her. It doesn’t hurt, but that takes a few moments to register- and you don’t think you trust it. Her fingers are freezing- she looks all too pleased with herself as she tugs open your bag, digging through the contents. “Sit up. If you’re not going to sleep, we might as well do  _ something _ productive.” 

“Change your mind about feeding me to the wolves, have you?” There’s no way you’re going to attempt to sleep this dream away now, nor do you want to stay on the ground with her here- but you also don’t want her to win. You know she knows that. Know she’s enjoying this all too much, watching you sit up with your eyes still glued to her, tensing at every move she makes.

“I can think of better ways to waste my time; starting with this.” She holds up your hairbrush, shuffling closer with a soft ‘tsk’ at your immediate attempts to shift away. “Don’t start again, darling. Sit still.”

“Sure. Easy.” She moves behind you- every cell in your body screams in protest. “Because I’m just going to let you brush my hair after-”

“Madeline, do us both a favor. Shut up.” 

She’s not gentle. Your hair is a mess of tangles, two days of blustering winds and being left to its own devices catching up with you as the hairbrush catches in the knots, over and over again. You grit your teeth, blink away the heat from your eyes when a particularly sharp tug feels like it’s just torn a chunk of scalp away from your skull, and do yourself a favor. You shut up.

She shuts up too, which is about as much of a blessing as you could ask for. Not only is your hair long, it’s always been stupidly thick as well. Doesn’t matter if the brush runs through your hair smooth as butter one moment; she always finds another snag in the next.

The wolf is howling again, sounding further away this time. Maybe it isn’t even the same wolf- maybe they’re part of the same pack, trying to find each other in the dark. It’s something to think about that isn’t her, kneeling behind you like this is just an everyday occurrence, sighing under her breath whenever she finds a new tangle to overcome. It feels so stupidly normal that you want to laugh, eyes sliding closed as finally,  _ finally,  _ her motions stop hurting, scalp unpleasantly warm, hair parting beneath her fingers with ease.

“Go back to sleep, darling.”

Somehow, you do just that.

* * *

The next morning should be a relief. You open your eyes and watch small puffs of vapor rise away from your lips, feeling around beside you for Theo’s goggles. Go to put them on your head- pause.

Less relieving than being awake is the unerring smoothness of your hair, pinned up into a thick braid that seems to be holding itself together with nothing more than desperation and spite. Your hairbrush is laying next to your backpack- past the usual strands of auburn, there are a few darker pieces. Just as long, but too dark. So distinctly  _ not  _ your hair that you find yourself spending a good half hour picking your brush clean, throwing it into the bottom of your bag and resolving to just Not Think About This, Like, Ever.

The next minute sees you pulling at the braid until your hair sitting freely across your back and shoulders, like it always does. Like it should’ve been. It’s a little wavier than it should be, which tells you that it’s been that way for a while, at least; a few good hours of being held in one position, until the beast was almost tame. You’re tempted to melt some snow to soak your hair in.

It’s the sort of reckless behavior you’re prone to do, when every corner of your brain isn’t shouting at you for it.  _ Hypothermia, loser!  _ You’ll die!

Well maybe you didn’t come up here to die, exactly, but  _ maybe  _ the idea is starting to get tempting. “And what are you going to do about that, huh? Any new opinions from the peanut gallery?”

There isn’t. It leaves you feeling increasingly frustrated as you pack up the rest of your things; stuck on the sensation of biting back words that you don’t have. Imagine how messed up you’d have to be, to feel frustration over not getting to throw a hurtful retort at yourself.

By the time you start towards that building again, you’re as far from relieved as humanly possible.

You have no idea what’s real anymore.

* * *

You have  **absolutely NO IDEA** what’s real anymore.

Getting away from the resort is a blur of passing scenery, until the panic seizing your shoulders is too overwhelming to ignore. You end up squatting down on the ground, head between your knees as you try to get enough oxygen not to faint, or stop crying, or anything at all. Anything.

Anything useful. Anything that’s not this.

You hate this. You hate the logical pieces of you that sit there commentating on the facts of this, like they should be a comfort. You hate it when you start muttering along, like the  _ average length of a panic attack is six to eight minutes  _ makes a difference to you right now, like  _ the most important thing to do right now is even out your breathing  _ will Make You do that. You mutter under your breath, voice skating across the very edge of hysteria, and you cry and flinch and shut your eyes tightly against all the things now rushing en masse towards you; not-quite hearing shifting in the snow, not-quite hearing hisses of laughter, not- _ quite _ feeling hands reaching out to snare your wrists, your ankles, to pull you into an abyss you’ll never crawl out of, because they can and they will, and it’s not logical but you’ll  _ die here  _ and it’s  _ not fair when you just wanted to do One Thing in your life worth recollecting, why here, why now, why you?? _

It could be minutes. It could be hours. Your body locks up and your eyes stay shut, the most movement you’re capable of doing an erratic rocking motion, back and forth, as tears mix with bursts of angry, confused laughter and ramblings that stopped being logical the moment you started saying them out loud. You hate that you like this almost as much as the surety that it’ll end if you just wait it out, because waiting it out doesn’t mean you’re in control.

It just means you’re so used to being battered by this, you might as well just get it over with.

Over with is… worse. It’s so much worse. Your lungs slowly stop feeling like they’re collapsing in on themselves as you stop rocking back and forth. Opening your eyes is the next step- you don’t want to take it. Every piece of your body aches in the aftermath; a disjointed continuation of tension that has your head feeling like it’s full of lead and your arms quaking like jelly, but at the same time-

At the same time, searching fingers across the nape of your neck uncover what seems to be a layer of muscle turned steel, just beneath your skin. Removing yourself from the tight ball that is you takes effort and energy you don’t have, so the motions don’t...feel right. Like you’ve left yourself two steps outside of your body as you stand up off the ground, take a breath- and trudge onwards.

The snow doesn’t help your attempts to worm back into reality. Your eyes sting, enough to know you should take out Theo’s goggles, but you don’t. You wonder where he is now, if he got out before all- That went down.

The process of wondering takes five minutes, or two hours. Both. No in-between. You don’t know how far you’ve managed to walk. You don’t know if the scenery has changed. There’s another camping nook not five feet away from you, cleared of snow and stocked with wood; you can’t remember when it got there.

Letting your pack fall to the ground, you crouch in front of it and wait for it to light itself, tremors running up and down your arms from the cold and other things. Blindly staring and not seeing until she’s there, crouched down in front of you. You don’t know where she came from either.

“Therapy not paying enough?” She asks, almost innocently. Her smile is cruel- even at your emotional limit, you know you should be rising to that bait. Get angry. Be a force of nature, Madeline. Scorch the earth- take yourself out as you go.

You know you should be rising to that bait. Funny, that you can’t find it in yourself to care.

“...Oh sweetie, are you overwhelmed again?” She cups your cheek- you blink rapidly at the change in temperature. Her hand is freezing. “Focus on your breathing, honey. I’m here.”

Mom. 

“Don’t.” You’re too tired. You’re too tired- and it all...hurts. It just. Hurts. Even your voice, when it comes, it’s not- you. You never sound that exhausted, or defeated. You’re never this quiet. Did you even open your mouth to answer? “Just don’t.”

Her smile slips. A minute, five minutes- an hour. Your spacial awareness is shot, so it could be any of those. Any period that she just crouches in front of you, hand melding against your cheek like it’s frozen there.

“I told you to stop climbing. He told you not to play therapist- you trust him, don’t you? You could have listened to him, if you’re not going to listen to  _ me _ .” A rough exhale. You can feel her breath on your chin, but it doesn’t fog up in the rapidly cooling air of the evening. You’re not so sure she’s even real; you weren’t sure last night, either. You’re not sure how much of anything is real, and it’s- “Madeline, sweetheart. Eyes up here.”

She snaps her fingers in front of your face to prompt a reaction, but it still comes slowly- your eyes are as sluggish as the rest of your body as you look back up to her.

“Honestly, you’re of no use to anyone like this.” She keeps watching you- a disconnected piece of yourself is almost fascinated by it. She almost looks afraid. “...Was it that bad?”

Panic attacks aren’t always equal. Sometimes you can scrape yourself back off the ground and keep going- if it’s early enough in the day, you even feel almost- normal, by the time night comes. Those days are hard, but they’re easier than this. It takes a lot of effort to get through them, but you  _ can.  _

This isn’t one of those times.

This used to be a weekly event- so out of it, so- worn out by your episodes, the best you could manage to do was call off whatever you’d gotten out of bed for, just so you could crawl back into it. You’ll hate it tomorrow, when it finally catches up that you’ve wasted so much time, but right now…

If she’s you, there’s no reason to bother summoning up the strength to respond. It’s been a while, but you’ve done this before. If she’s you, she knows that.

“Okay.” And again, you’re almost fascinated by her. She looks so lost now; as out of her element as you’re out of your mind; the intent to pity her is so much stronger than any other emotion you’re trying to feel that you almost start to laugh, lips curling upwards for the briefest of moments.

That seems to decide her. Letting her hand fall away, she rocks back on her heels, eyes narrowed.

“Okay, darling. If you insist, then I’ll fix your mess. This list is never going to end, you know.” She sighs as she begins to make camp for you, filling the silence with a smattering of commentary- mostly things she’s told you before, but you weren’t listening then, and you don’t have it in you to listen now. Once she has a fire going, she’s quick to practically drag you on top of it- you sit there, shakes growing increasingly violent as your body begins to thaw out. 

In the meantime, she just keeps making camp.

A cup of melted snow is shoved between your stiff fingers at some point; nagging reminders to hydrate don’t sink in until she threatens to tip it down your throat herself. Despite this, you’re left to shock yourself with slightly warm, tinny liquid. You didn’t realize you were that thirsty, but the first cup is followed by a second, followed by a heated granola bar that’s just a little burnt, and equally crispy trail mix.

“Why you couldn’t pack some  _ actual  _ food is beyond me, darling. You can’t afford to lose any weight.” She’s right, and you’re not sure why.

You don’t think you were thinking by the time you decided to do this.

“You don’t say? Amazing; we really are starting to agree on some topics.” She snickers; not an altogether unpleasant sound. You’re contemplating what part of it is more pleasant than prior (you think it might be the relief; the clear brightening of her tone at how sluggish thoughts are finally starting to respond to external stimuli) when arms wrap about your stomach, forcing an indignant squeak from you as you’re bodily pulled back into a cold lap- no better than the ground. Worse, actually.

“Don’t be so dramatic. You’re the one who didn’t bring a blanket.” She says boredly, voice uncomfortably close to your ear. “We need to warm up- pick at your brain until you remember what body heat is, sweetie. If you start now, you might figure it out in the next hour.”

That’s not fair. You exhale roughly, dropping your head back- you miss hers, but she laughs all the same. Quietly letting her mirth expel into your shoulder, she actually does rest her chin there, grinning over at you with enough...niceness mixing into her features that she almost looks kind. Or alive, in a way; happier and healthier and maybe just shying somewhere close to the vicinity of attractive.

“Everyone keeps telling you to smile- now you know why. We’re attractive when we’re happy.” You feel her shrug, casual confidence (or bloated ego) so completely left field for you that you have to wonder where she gets it from. You could ask, but then…

The less you feel like you’re still standing at the edge of the fire- the more you feel like there’s another person, slowly warming at the points where your bodies are pressed together- the less you want to speak. It feels so sacrosanct. As if breaking the silence with your voice would destroy it all.

Why bother speaking when she’s been reading your mind this whole time anyway? She grins into your shoulder; you almost snort, reaching down to grab at her hands when she squeezes you in reprimand.

Her fingers are still freezing. So are yours, but as the rest of your body begins to reach an almost comfortable level of warmth, you keep your fingers closed over her palms, staring down at them with a still mostly detached sense of interest. 

She is so much paler than you. You’re not tanned by any means, cursed with too many peach tones that leave your face looking uncomfortably flushed more often than you’d like. She’s practically ashen by comparison. Her hands are nearly identical to yours; but her complexion makes her veins stand out a little more, thin blue streaks snaking through the back of her palm. It gives off an impression of fragility you know isn’t correct.

Thoughtfully (thoughtlessly; it’s impossible to tell the difference right now), you run your thumbs across the ones you can see, an idle fascination that takes up a minute, five minutes, an hour. It’s hard to tell. 

But you know she’s letting you. Your feel her chin pressing back into your shoulder, just as you see her in your periphery. Face hidden in the plush of your jacket from the nose down, eyes watching your thumbs as they move across cold skin over and over, until cold skin isn’t quite so cold anymore. 

The world slows down to meet your own pace, and you stop feeling quite as disconnected. Your body still aches, but even that isn’t too terrible- there’s enough warmth resting against your back to have the ache be one of relief, as steel turns back to muscle and your shoulders finally draw down. Tracing veins turns to playing with long, pianist fingers (you tried to learn an instrument growing up, but the amount of focus required made your interests turn elsewhere pretty quickly). Her cuticles are better kept than yours, the edges of her nails more naturally rounded, less… bitten to the quick.

It’d be nice if you could appear this put together, wouldn’t it? Even if it was just appearances, it’d be nice.

She probably knows what you’re thinking- no, incorrect. She  _ absolutely hears _ , and her lack of response is her prerogative, even if you’re thankful for it. Has she been nicer tonight? Yes. Physically. Verbally, she’s drifted down, hit the same velvet blanket of quiet you have...but she didn’t start this way.

It might not work now, but when she found you, if she’d tried- you could’ve been halfway back to your car and none the wiser. She could have taken advantage of this; the more the world slows to comfortably fit your pace, the more aware of that fact you are, leaving you to play with her fingers as you try not to break the silence, when it’s oh so sacrosanct. 

Why is she doing this?

“Still turning yourself into the victim.” Her words are muffled, face still hidden in your jacket, and- 

You try to bite it back, but it’s so indulgently domestic. Your smile is stronger than your reservations. She turns her head, watching you instead of your hands. Looking at your smile, glancing at the corners of your eyes. You get the sense that there’s more to that gaze than you’re truly willing to grasp- an examination reading parts of yourself that you don’t usually have to read.

She’s checking to see if she’s provoked you, yet, says one piece of you, crisp with the tender beginnings of annoyance. No, says another. She’s checking that you’re better.

Maybe it’s both.

“You’re right, darling. I could drag you down the mountain now… it wouldn’t be hard. Not until you’ve slept off all of this.” Her hand turns over, fingers pressing up against your own. “We both know what would happen then. You’d get even more stubborn about this. I told you- rationality isn’t your strong suit.”

She has a point. On the precipice of whatever truce she’s deemed you to have tonight, you’re not inclined to be angry. There’s plenty there to be angry for; and tomorrow, you’ll feel that. You’ll feel that  _ immensely.  _

Being taken advantage of when you’re not in the state to doing anything about it, that’s-

Something she would have done. And she did, multiple times, until you realized just how damaging that truly was, and you tried to call her out on it, but in the end she…

“Madeline.” Fingers push between your own, curling over your knuckles. Blinking, you look down, almost unnerved by the contrast. Your peach undertones, and almost ashen grey. “ I’m not her. I’m you.”

You know. You know, though your heart squeezes with what might have been sadness, once upon a time. Now, you think you might be grateful. No matter how things are with yourself, you’re not her.

That’s something.

“When you finally gain some sense and let me take us home?” She murmurs, lips almost pressed to your ear. “It’s going to be because you realized what a mistake this was. Tomorrow, when you’re not so- broken up about this, keep that in mind.”

She hums, tightening her hold on your hand.

“I can get my way without taking advantage, sweetie.”

* * *

She’s gone when you wake, the lingering warmth at your back enough to tell you that she stayed the entire night with you. Again. The shortest pieces of your bangs still brush your cheeks when you rise, but at some point in the night, she must have rummaged through your bag. Found your brush, half crushed beneath a spare sweater.

You leave it as you get ready for the day, the last vestiges of fog retreating from your mind as you take the time to brew up one of the several teabags you’d thrown into the bottom of your pack, munching on a few heated granola bars. They aren’t as overcooked as last night; more sticky than charcoaled- you liked the taste of them burnt more.

Leaving the campsite as clean as you can, you continue. Very quickly, you’re noticing the changes in this part of the mountain. You can see more on the ground than just snow, grass and trees growing in surprising abundance. 

More surprising is the hot springs. They don’t smell as bad as you expect, previous experience with such things telling you that there should be that scent in the air, sulfur melting into a nasty gas that tastes like eggs and smells like rotting. How can the water be warm without that? Can hot springs smell...okay? Are they natural, or man-made?

Dirt and sweat layer your body like a film; looking at the sparkling, clear liquid sends pangs of longing so strong that you’re tempted to waste the entire day here, cleaning yourself up. You deserve it after last night, don’t you? You deserve it, for all the effort it’s taken to get here at all. 

A not-so-chance meeting with that old lady ruins the idea. Not only because she’s an old bat who delights in insulting you. Her presence is a good reminder that you’re not the  _ only  _ one on this mountain; being caught out in the water by an old crone or yourself is bad enough, but Theo’s out there...somewhere. 

That spoils the idea completely, so you keep going. 

The first gust of heavy wind ruins her attempts at keeping your hair back. 

It also ruins any chance of  _ thinking _ , which you’d told yourself you’d do once you got your feet back on the right path. You’d spend more time in free-fall than you do on solid ground, so thinking is regulated to the unnerving, pinpoint precision required to stop yourself from falling into an expanse of clouds hiding sharp rocks and twisted, abandoned cityscapes below.

You wish you’d thought to bring some bobby pins with you. Even a hair tie, just so she could’ve...kept your hair out of your face a little longer. It wasn’t bothering you before. Now, as the wind goes against you and you find your vision obscured by a mass of frantic red, you’re starting to see the appeal.

You’re  _ really  _ starting to see it.

But, you know, whatever? Whatever. It’s fine. You don’t fall, you don’t slip up- you’re better at this than you thought you’d be! Sometimes you look down at the next jump you have to take, and your mind supplies you with far too graphic a recollection-

Too graphic an  _ imagined  _ fall would be. Imagined. Because you haven’t fallen yet, and you’re not about to start.

“I bet mountain climbers can’t do  _ this _ .” You say aloud. Chances are she can’t hear you, but you natter on anyway. Unnerved by your feelings and the absence of...anyone else. “That was the wrong criticism to make. You should’ve said something like…  _ you’re not an acrobat, darling. Not spiderman.  _ Spiderman wishes he could do what I do.”

Stopping for lunch, your hair is bothering you so much that you brush it out on your own. When it feels silken under your fingers (and oily; your hair was always oily), you fiddle with some strands, attempting to recreate the tight loops she’d twisted it into so successfully. 

You can’t. You tell yourself she has an advantage- she can see what she’s doing, she doesn’t have to position her head and her arms at weird angles, just to reach- but it adds to your sour mood all the same, mutters lost in the howling winds as you trudge ever onwards, thinking of the morning you’d spent clambering about the closed-in,  _ windless  _ resort with something approaching longing.

Then you get on the gondola. 

It’s her. You know it is. She stops it mid-motion, leaving you swaying wildly back and forth in the middle of a ravine. You don’t know how high you are- at that stage, you don’t care.  _ She stops the car _ , and maybe it’s the fact that  _ she’s going to do this after everything else  _ that has you at least somewhat capable of snapping back at Theo, like it’s his fault you got on. Like you didn’t decide you’d do this yourself.

You’re panicked, but you’re also so  _ angry  _ that it keeps your head above water, racing thoughts bouncing away from the knowledge that you’re going to die and focusing on  _ why she would do this to you.  _ Is this your fault? You let your guard down; last night it was just so easy to think about her as a friend…

Look where that got you. This stupid car isn’t going to hold forever- it shudders and shakes, tossed about by the wind. You’re going to die- shutting your eyes doesn’t stop you from knowing that everything is still out there. Every rattle and screech of metal calls  _ things  _ towards you that makes this feel even more gruesome, somehow. You’re surrounded by everything that hates you, that wants to hurt you, and you’re going to die. And they’re going to  _ make it hurt. _

“Madeline, you cool?”

Poor Theo. Poor,  _ stupid  _ Theo, who doesn’t seem to get how much trouble you’re both in, acting so helpful when he’s  _ clueless  _ and you wish he’d shuffle back a little and give you the space to  _ breathe- _

“Come on, don’t take this out on me. Stay with me here. My grandpa taught me a trick for this.”

You usually escape when this happens. Usually, there’s space to find; your bedroom, a public toilet-  _ somewhere  _ you can deal with all of this, alone, until it’s over and done with. It’s embarrassing enough to deal with on your own- having someone right there, trying to guide you through it, adds another level of mortification that you have no idea how to stomach. Shame forces you to at least  _ try  _ and do what he’s asking from you- if it doesn’t make you feel better, you can eventually pretend it did, and he’ll feel better even if you have to scrape together enough of a lie to leave him none the wiser.

He can’t fix this, you tell yourself. You can’t fix this, so why would a stranger have any more weight than you? You only try because you feel bad for him; you’d feel worse if you didn’t comply to some extent. These are your last moments- you can’t waste them on being an asshole…

Maybe the biggest difference is having something to focus on outside of your head. Theo directs you back into it all, but you have a tether- not hateful, or negative, just his voice, speaking over the wind and creaks until he’s drowned them out entirely.  _ Picture a feather.  _ It sounds stupid, you think. Dumb. It won’t work.

You picture a feather. You have a good imagination, so you take your time, imagining the feather. It’s small. A little curved- from a wing, not the tail. Ruddy gold in color, almost taking on a brownish hue, but a little more...special. A little otherworldly. The quill- shaft, it’s got a stark gradient to it. Blending in with the vane near the top, lighter towards the downy ends. 

It drifts up and down in front of you. You let it drift- it lets itself drift. You follow it with your eyes, watch it shudder and jerk about as your breathing remains rapid, watch it still when you do. When your breathing eases, so does the path it makes- a steady uplift, a slow descent.

It’s beautiful.

The feather is kind of like your breathing exercises, just… more. It leaves you feeling disconcertedly stable when you finally reach solid ground. You still have to take your time to regulate your breathing, hands clutching at your knees so you won’t fall over, but. You don’t feel out of tune with the world, and when Theo shows you the rather unfortunately timed selfie, you even have it in you to laugh.

You’ve made it through these before, but you’ve never felt good enough to laugh about it. Genuinely, almost… happily. You laugh. It feels...okay.

You feel okay.

“Ready?” He asks you kindly, jerking a thumb at the trail beyond. Through the cliffs, you can just make out some sort of grey mass ahead of you- possibly another building, if it stands out so starkly. A break from the wind. From looking down and worrying that you’re going to make a misstep… or looking down and worrying that you’ve already made it.

“Go ahead? I need a minute.” You smile at him, so he knows you’re okay, and the corners of his eyes crease good-naturedly as he lets you go, walking ahead with his camera held high. It’s almost admirable, how he only manages to trip over himself twice along the way.

You take your time examining the gondola. Clambering up to the roof isn’t difficult, but the metal is coated with ice, leaving you to clutch at the wires overhead as you carefully make your way across space. You know… you  _ thought  _ you saw her, if just for a second- a curl of dark hair swirling across the open window, too obvious to belong. 

There are fingerprints in the metal. Great, heavy prints, like someone had grabbed onto a stick of butter and  _ squeezed, really hard _ -

Or grabbed onto the side of a gondola, forcing it to stop. Overloading the engine.

“You said you didn’t have to force me back.” You say to the open air. Snow drifts idly by, barely enough to constitute as a flurry. “You avoided saying if you were trying to kill me-  _ what you do think this is, huh?! _ ”

It doesn’t take a lot to raise your voice, on a mountain. The empty space carries it, bouncing off hidden corners and rock walls until your pitch and tone reverberate about you. 

_ do you think this is, huh?  _

_...this is, huh? _

_....huh? _

She doesn’t answer you. Maybe she doesn’t hear, but- you doubt it. She’s so good at hearing all the things you don’t want her to, why would she miss this? 

Years ago, back when you were still together, she’d said to you that you had- a way of escalating everything. So desperate for attention, you’d work anything up into a catastrophe in your mind, if only so she’d spend an hour calming you down. 

She was right. She hasn’t talked to you in months, but she was right. She was right about what kind of person you are. The manipulative, controlling type, who kept using your pitfalls to your advantage, just to get some attention.

Well, now you have your attention. 

“I’m not  _ caving to you! _ ” You shout at her. That wide, empty ravine shouts back; almost making up for the fact that she’s not here to shout back herself. “I’m going to climb this mountain. You won’t stop me! I don’t need you to do it! And I don’t need you to brush my hair and pretend we’re friends!”

You don’t need her to act like, maybe just once, a piece of you gave a damn about your state of being. When your next breath is almost a sob, you let go of the wires, pressing your hands against your eyes.

They were already burning, but the tears just make it worse. It’s so-  _ frustrating. _

“I can’t believe I almost trusted you.” You should know better by now.

When have you ever been able to trust yourself?

* * *

You know what hell is, now. 

It’s inside of a mirror, flanked on either side by evil green flames. It’s full of ugly red tentacles and monsters with too many eyes and  _ far, far too many teeth _ that live only to hunt you down. To hurt you.  It’s going into the next room only to run headlong into a sense of urgent deja vu. Deciding your course of action just to immediately  _ undecide it _ , because you think you feel rows and rows and  _ rows  _ of sharp, jagged teeth closing down on your arm, your ankle, your stomach.

Your head.

Hell is dark and humid, and pulses with almost jarring tandem to the pulse running through your veins, because it has to remind you in every possible way that hell is something which comes from within. 

Hell can be external too, of course. 

Hell is being half the size of someone and trying to carry them through knee-high snow. 

Theo is not light. Theo’s pack is  _ definitely  _ not light, so you’re not sure how you manage to get him, pack and all, as far away from that temple as you do. Every time you almost stumble, you pick yourself back up, gritting your teeth so hard you can hear the bone creaking in protest whilst you mutter to yourself, grimly; “Just a few more steps. Just another minute. Just…”

It’s a long trek. When you catch sight of another well-stocked campfire, you deserve to fall flat on the ground- which is precisely what you do. Half smothered beneath Theo and his  _ stupid backpack,  _ you try to catch your breath again, wincing your way through sharp stitches that pull on your sides with every inhale. You could just stay like this, maybe- just stare face down at the snow whilst it melts below you, until night falls and finds you stumbling through the dark. Blind  _ and  _ soggy.

No thank you. 

Getting up...sucks. Pushing Theo onto his back, you groan, wincing at the aches and pains that loudly make themselves known when you’re on your knees. Standing is even worse. Still, you shoulder your way through it, shuffling back and forth and wishing you had a nice, big cane, like the old lady did. Maybe she didn’t even need a cane. Maybe she was just smarter about mountain climbing than you.

Obviously, she was smarter about it than you. Then you and Theo combined; one tourist slash inspiring photographer and one… unraveling miscreant, who doesn’t even know why she’s here.

Climbing this mountain was a mistake. You’re not giving up (there is no way you are  _ ever  _ giving up, not now), but it was a mistake. 

At least the fire doesn’t take too long to build. You just keep adding kindling until you’re sure that the logs have fully caught, dragging Theo as close as you’re confident in doing- far away enough to not catch fire himself, you hope? Then, finally, you can sit; sliding down to the ground opposite, watching him breathe with a feeling that’s almost… disbelief.

You’re alive. 

How did you even manage that?

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Her voice is almost breezy; indulgent. It feels like she’s making a big deal out of nothing- like she does every time your thoughts align in a way that could be seen as agreeing with each other. 

You’re tired, but oh _.  _ Her very presence makes your blood  _ boil. _

“No.” 

“No?” By comparison, she just looks amused- but she knows, doesn’t she? She can feel  _ exactly  _ what you’re feeling right now, is probably reading your mind and laughing at your fierce projections of  _ I know you know that I know you know!!! _ You’re sick of it. You hate it!

“No! You-  _ we,  _ aren’t doing this anymore!” Pushing to your feet, you throw an arm out, blocking her. Barring her the right to the fire. “You don’t get to  _ say that _ and just show up, like everything’s fine! What?!”

You’re asking it like it’s a question, but her now blank expression doesn’t ask anything- and you don’t wait for an answer.

“What did you expect?! Did you think I was just going to be fine with this?! That you can come sit down and tell me about how much I’m going to fail, still? Is this just another girl’s night to you? Why are you even here; so you can  _ braid my hair? _ ”

“You keep going on and on about how important sleep is- it’s not my fault you can’t sleep with one eye open.” She sniffs haughtily, still trying to act high and mighty and better than you, and it’s-

“ _ Bullshit! _ ” A screech, hands curled into fists so tight, your nails bite into your skin. “You don’t get to do this to me! You don’t get to  _ pick and choose _ when you want to be on my side!”

“I tried to stop you from going in there!” She doesn’t look so blank, anymore. Her hair twists up in the air, a perfect reflection of the snarl that curls her lips, bares her teeth. “You had every chance to go back. Gondolas go  _ two ways, darling! _ That oaf could have gotten himself out of his own mess;  _ you  _ decided to follow him. You’re  _ still  _ playing the good person; still pretending that if you’re helping someone else out, you’re going to be a better person.  _ I am you, Madeline, YOU can’t lie to me! _ ”

“You let me die!” 

Her hair goes limp, words stopping her short. They almost stop you, too. But you’ve said it now. There’s no taking it back. Nothing else for it but to continue, wrapping your arms around your stomach for some kind of- comfort. A physical reminder that you’re still here; still in one piece.

You don’t feel like you should be. You  _ know  _ you shouldn’t be.

“You let me die. That’s what it is, right? That feeling, like I’ve done something before- it went wrong. I died.” You want her to argue. “ I’ve felt it all day. And yesterday. All the way up here.”

You’re waiting, for some kind of laugh. To be told that you’re being stupid, to stop saying something so ridiculous.

“You knew this whole time, didn’t you?”

Except that never comes. It’s how you know for sure, a niggling suspicion clicking into place as a reality. You’ve been dying up here, over and over again. All this time, she’s been talking about babysitting you, protecting you.

From what?

“...Please, go away. I want- I need some time, to think about this.” There’s not enough time on this green earth to think about this, but you don’t want to see her. You can’t look her in the eye right now, knowing this.

Knowing she’d known about this.

“...Fine.” Her voice is so very, very flat. Just like her hair. “I’ll let you ‘think’. You and your little Theo can take all the time you need. Is that what you want?”

“Theo doesn’t have anything to do with this.” You say tiredly. You get what she’s doing, you do. It’s never comfortable to admit that things are this bad because of what you’ve done- failed to do.

You aren’t great at admitting when you’re wrong. It’s a problem for you; a historical issue that got bigger as you grew up, not smaller. If you’re not good at it, then it makes sense for her to be utterly incapable.

“Theo has  _ everything  _ to do with this. You don’t want him to see me, is that it? Better that he just sees you, and continues thinking you’re just  _ so wonderful- _ ”

“Do you ever stop? You’re acting like some kind of-”

“Some kind of  _ what? _ ” She leers at you. Clears the space between you in the blink of an eye. Pushes when she shouldn’t, like that’s anything new. “Go ahead. Finish the sentence.”

“Some kind of jilted lover!”

The laugh that escapes her promises nothing but trouble. Your shoulders tense, mind preemptively starting to shift you into some manner of defensive, but you’re too slow. She’s already right there, pinning your arms between the two of you. Her nose bumps yours, motion rough and rushed and a lot of things, not altogether positive, not altogether pleasant.

Her lips are chapped, but so are yours. 

It’s been 29 months since you broke up with her. Or- she broke up with you. You broke up with her, but she cut you out of her life like a festering wound, healing over the gap you made with such skill that no matter how many times you caved to temptation, calling her in the middle of the night, there was never a warm voice waiting to answer the phone. You slept together; the feel of her lips on yours, on practically every piece of you was, is- an absence. As regrettable a loss as the dulcet sounds of her voice on your worst nights, but somehow easier to lose attraction to; easier to forget how to miss.

29 months. You haven’t kissed anyone else. She burned you so much that you’ve contemplated the idea of being alone forever; it’d just be you. You and every unpleasant aspect of you, stuck together till the end of time. So feeling the way she tips her head to the side to kiss you properly, breath and teeth and tongue trying to draw you into something deeper, it’s all-

So  _ stupidly, morbidly funny  _ that you fail not to laugh. A muffled giggle pushed out between your lips that forces that errant piece of your person away much like a hot metal rod might have, looking at you like she thinks you’ve finally cracked it. Your giggles turn into a full round of deep belly laughs that have you gasping for breath, clutching your stomach as you double over.

Her hair whips around you, smacking you in the cheek hard enough to knock you over- she’s gone by the time the laughter starts to distort, ignorant to the sound of your tears.

That’s for the best.

* * *

The feather is your closest ally. You bring it to mind, watching it float amid a strong wind. It never falters, drifting steadily up and down within the confines of the torrid howl of your emotions. Until the torrent calms, and goes still. It’s not quite a panic attack- but you feel the distant aches that indicate it Could Have Been.

You need to remember to use this more often. You want it to become a habit; subconscious, simple. It kept you going after the gondola. It saved you in the mirror temple. It’s probably saving you now.

You wish that the piece of yourself dogging your footsteps was more like the feather; strong, resolute. You wish she felt like you could do this. Not whatever jumbled energy it was that kept colliding into you, day after day. A fight with every footstep.

When you manage to compose yourself, there’s not much you can do. The fire keeps going steadily; you melt a few cups of snow, and sit with one clasped between your fingers as the sky loses the rest of its color, giving away to purple-black and the breathtaking glimmer of countless stars.

Theo keeps sleeping, and you’re not hungry. Dinner never actually happens… though that’s probably for the best. You can’t remember how much food you bought, but there can’t be that much left. Enough to reach the summit?

...Enough to get back down? You wish you’d been as thorough in your preparations as Theo; that pack is heavy for good reason. Even with all of that, he still managed to stay ahead of you, most of the time.

Thinking about preparations (or lack of) doesn’t hold you for long. Mostly, you think about- life. Being alive; how surprising that state is, now that you know. How many times have you fallen down and not realized? Today, yesterday. When being chased by Mr. Oshiro, or before that, when you raced through the ruins.

Was your first dream of her really a dream? Did you die back then? Is that when she knew? What does she want from you?

More importantly...what would you like from her? 

You could spend hours on this subject alone, ticking off all the things that you do know. She’s always been- stronger, than you. She reminds you of things that you don’t want to think about. She hides things; significantly important things, like how the mountain is  _ killing you _ over and over. She makes a bad situation worse, she scares you in some ways and angers you in a hell of a lot more.

She muddies the waters by acting like those moments never happened, stepping into your camp and your space like she belongs there. Brushing and braiding your hair, when you won’t or can’t protest. You recognize what she’s doing, because you’ve done it before. It doesn’t feel great being on the receiving end. It’s- weird. How she assumes control in those moments. Either there’s a pretense of caring, or…

Somehow, there’s genuine care tossed somewhere between her insults and when you open your eyes in the morning. No matter how much you’d like to think otherwise, you can’t ignore your own experience in this. It’s terrible, and more than a little unhealthy, but you did it too. You know you cared.

She probably does care.

Do you want that? Knowing how many bad qualities come along with it. Knowing how completely and utterly these qualities destroyed relationships in your past. Do you want that?

Is that what you want to feel for yourself?

It’s probably late when Theo finally regains consciousness. You don’t mask your relief; it feels good to talk so openly with someone, to speak with him and have your experiences coincide enough that he doesn’t question what you’re saying- just why it took so long for you to say it. If this mountain has given you anything, it’s a bit of camaraderie that comes with surviving the impossible.

You open up to him more than you have in years. Not to your mom, whose intentions are good, but… mental health isn’t something she grew up having acknowledged. Not to the therapist you’d abandoned after the fourth session, too downtrodden by the experience to try that route again. Not to your friends.

It’s...nice to talk about things. Not just the mountain, not just  _ her,  _ but about… things. If you’d never said anything, it wouldn’t have made much difference, you think; but there’s a surprise to be found in admitting how you really are, in telling someone you’re always seconds from falling apart. Theo listens, expression open and empathetic, and you feel- free _ ,  _ in a way that doesn’t feel all that natural. It’s made all the better when he admits to not understanding but  _ wanting to _ \- have you ever been told that before? Has anyone ever took the time to admit it?

Because it feels good, you keep being honest with him. Theo takes it in stride. He really is a good guy; no matter how little he understands. He still listens and suggests things that connect with the jagged edges of reasoning in your head like a balm. You  _ could  _ be climbing this mountain to break a cycle; you don’t  _ need  _ to have a better excuse. Maybe it’s just that.

That’s helpful.

“This Part of You that’s haunting you, maybe she comes with the territory.”

He thinks you might be stuck with her forever.  _ You  _ think you might be stuck with her, and you put those words into his mouth. That’s not helpful. You tell him as much, expression twisted in a scowl- he grins with the creases in his eyes.

Then he stops, arms resting on one knee as he leans forward.

“So you want to destroy this Part of You?” He asks. You blink, wondering where he got that idea from. And then you wonder why you didn’t think it yourself. “Won’t that hurt you, too?”

Destroy her?

“...If I don’t, she’s just going to keep bullying me.” So- yes, you suppose. Yeah, you do want to destroy her. That controlling, manipulative part of you that’s destroyed so many things in your past, it- she presents an obstacle that you can feel every step of the way. 

It’s not about being a good person. It’s not even about feeling like a good person. It’s about finally getting the chance to be out of your head, to make decisions without constantly second-guessing yourself. To leave all those awful habits of yours behind- back in the past, where they should be. What else are you supposed to do? Keep fighting yourself, day after day? 

Keep letting her pretend she’s doing this for your sake, instead of her own? You sour, thinking back on her lack of response when you’d told her you’d died. “She says she’s protecting me, but that’s obviously not true.”

“Maybe she thinks she is,” Theo suggests, more relaxed about this than you think is wise. You still wish you could be a little more like he is. “She could be some kind of… twisted defense mechanism.”

He could be right, for all it’s worth. If that’s what she was, she wouldn’t explain that to you. ‘ _ Like you would have listened?’  _ She’d said, hovering above you. Always above, always taking the position that left her at the advantage. _ ‘You never gave me a chance.’ _

That’s not a good enough reason. There  _ were  _ chances, you knew there were- she never tried.

“Honestly, who cares?” You don’t. You don’t. You don’t. “She has so much control over me. I hate it.”

“Maybe you can learn to control her instead.” He suggests; serious and earnest and you wish that he was right, a little. You wish you could agree.

You don’t think you want to take the chance. She hasn’t taken a chance on you. 

“The feather helps.” Is what you do say, directing the topic away from her. Theo looks away from you, voice wry- he understands what you’re doing, but he lets it happen anyway. It’s nice of him. He pushes, but never so hard that you feel threatened by it. Once he’s challenged you with questions you don’t have answers to, he’s happy enough.

You’re kind of happy, too. In spite of the heavy topics, in spite of the days you’ve had, this is… probably the best you’ve felt, since coming to the mountain. You think it might be the best you’ve felt in a long time.

You don’t want to forget this night. Selfies… suddenly make a lot more sense to you.

* * *

So you want to destroy this Part of You?

You wish he hadn’t said that. As Theo drops back to sleep, still wearing the same smile he’d worn when you took his phone and snapped a picture of the two of you, you find yourself fighting back exhaustion, ruminating. Deliberating.

You want to destroy this Part of You?

Not exactly. The more you think about her, the more you see it. She’s you, just- not entirely. She’s your past. She’s the hurtful, neurotic pieces of you that haven’t moved on since that last relationship; the first time you’d thought in terms of “we” and “us” seriously. College was supposed to be about experimentation and finding yourself- you’d always been a little too serious for that. A little intense, as Theo said. 

You got lost in it. The idea that “we” was supposed to be forever, that all of your problems would magically disappear, now that someone else was around to help you. There were good times, and you want to remember just those, but- you were serious. You thought it meant forever.

You’d assumed it meant you were better; a better person, normal. It all started innocently enough; she had a life outside of you and maybe there’d been a part of you that didn’t like that. Maybe you felt left behind. Maybe a lot of things. Regardless, you’d started thinking back on so much unimportant stuff that it overwhelmed you.

That wasn’t her fault. You don’t even think it was your fault. How could you have known that you had so much going wrong inside? You’d had issues, but you’d knocked them back. Locked them away. Let her come into your life.

Let things start spilling over.

You ran to her, over and over again. For a while it was good. It was hard, but it was good. You didn’t have to be strong anymore. You didn’t have to crawl out of bed. Any time, no matter the hour, her voice was just a phone call away, ready to fill you with platitudes and make out like everything wasn’t as hard as it seemed. You started living for it.

She started using that. Little nudges here and there- just suggestions that something you didn’t want to do wasn’t a big deal. Then you were being silly. Then you owed her. You owed her so much, and you didn’t doubt it, and she let you keep coming to her, but something had changed. It stopped being a relationship.

It started being about how much of her attention you could get- and how much she thought her attention was worth. Your mom saw it. Your therapist, short-lived as those sessions were, saw it. Even you started to see it, near the end.

And when you told her (accused, screaming down the phone), you don’t think she was all that surprised. Disgusted, maybe. You don’t know. You’ll never know- her number is blocked on your phone but she blocked you first. It’s not something you can fix by contact. Contact isn’t wanted. Isn’t warranted. You’ve spent so long wondering about her thoughts on everything, her motivations, but that’s all it’s ever going to be.

Conjecture. You’ll never really know where your problems ended and hers started. But you do know that you’ve changed since then.

Not because you wanted to. You just- had to figure out how to survive on your own again. 

This Part of You isn’t the spawn of one failed relationship. She’s everything before it, too. She got worse when the situation allowed her to get worse; gained strength when things got bad. Manipulative, controlling. There’s nothing pragmatic there, nothing good.

You can’t just destroy her because you don’t like what you used to be. But just like all the questions you’ll never have an answer to, holding onto her is asking for problems. It’s begging to get caught up in something too big, big enough to swallow you whole. Keep this up, and the only person who’ll be destroyed is you.

So you want to destroy this Part of Yourself?

No. You just want to let go.

When you open your eyes to shimmering hues of blue and green, you feel better. More settled than you have in your entire journey; from a broken relationship to struggling with your past, to here. You feel almost weightless as you drift away, guided by gilded feathers on an upstream of what is, has to be… surety. You know what you want now, and it’s light. 

It’s whole and good and warm, and you want that for your future. You want to keep rising, high up into the air. You want to let go.

Dizzying curls of emotion spin you around- you almost laugh, caught in the train of your resolution as you look up to the Northern Lights, not so far away anymore. Not so close that you could touch, but you could try. If you kept going, would something be waiting up there? Another world, dancing through the stars.

She isn’t there before you close your eyes. Circling the world with you, caught up in the same whirl of sensations that have you feeling buoyant, confident. You look at the well-known hollows of her eyes, and you smile, and you tell yourself that things are going to be okay now.

It’s okay.

“The Northern Lights are so beautiful…” You say, wistful. If you could stay up here forever, even with her, you would. You really would.

She doesn’t look like she shares your sentiments.

“Yeah… they are…” Spoken slowly, not agreeing but not disagreeing, and her eyes go from the lights, to you, to the ground, so far below. Her hair pillows below her thighs, instinctively trying to hinder a fall that isn’t coming. You wish you could reassure her that it won’t. “Where are we?”

You’re not sure you have the time for it.

“We need to talk.” It’s nice to sound like you’re the stronger of you, for once. Her hesitations don’t disappear, but she acquiesces all the same. Gives into you, instead of the other way around. 

You feel so full. Fit to burst.

That’s a mistake. So buoyant, finally free of some terrible weight, you talk. You tell her what she is. You tell her what you aren’t. You’re direct, hurtful without really intending to be, setting out the groundwork for the next direction your life is meant to take, now that you’re high enough to see it. The air is clear and crisp; you inhale, the feeling of it so seamless that you doubt you’ll ever struggle for breath again. 

“Why would you say that?” You should have paid more attention. It was right there on her face. She looked devastated, an expression that grew as you hastened to reassure, instead of understand.

“No, it’s okay! I understand now!” You’re so, so sure, reaching out your hands to her. She doesn’t take them. “I don’t need you anymore.”

“So you’re just… abandoning me?”

“I’m setting you free.” You’re sure that’s what she needs to hear, too. That you can both let go- get on with your lives. Live the way you want to live. 

Her hair coils about her in waves, breath sharp, rapid. 

“Sweetheart, you… are a fucking  _ moron _ .”

The bubble pops. Reality sinks back in with a vicious click of foreboding. You’re not flying anymore, you’re frozen. Staring back at her as her hair flares up around her, a tell to her emotions that’s only second to the look on her face.

You didn’t know you could look so

Animalistic. 

Her teeth are bared, so unlike a smile that it can’t even constitute as one. The corners of her mouth stretch, curving up and out that it’s a wonder they’re not escaping the planes of her face entirely. The lights are gone. The stars are gone. All too quickly you’re reminded of just how much power she has, be that power over the world, or just you.

“You think you can just leave me behind? You think you can blame everything on me?” Her words are articulated with sharps gestures, hands claw-like as they cut through the air. You realize, as you watch her, that anger has never been the correct definition when reviewing the mess of emotions she makes you feel. “You think you’re better than me?!”

Fear. You’re afraid- of what she is, of course. More importantly, there’s what she can  _ do.  _ The dreams, the way she rarely, if ever, touches the ground- the thick, black miasma that creeps in with her presence, suffocatingly thick. You were so intent on being angry, you never considered what it would be like if she lost her patience with you.

You’re finding out the hard way.

“ _ ANSWER ME! _ ” Your heart squeezes, listening to her howl into the night. Like a wolf that’s too close to the fire, a predator careening closer with rows and rows of spiked teeth. When she reacts to your feelings, it’s to trap you with her. To snare you tight with every ugly sensation emanating from her body; a tendril of malice given life by the mountain you’re still dizzyingly trapped above. You’re so, so high from the ground.

Nice as the trip up had been, it’s going to hurt a lot more coming back down.

“Please,” You choke out. Pleading for your life seems like the right thing to do. Pleading for your life is all you have, when she looks ready to kill you. “Calm down.”

“Calm down?!” All you manage, in the end, is agitating her further. She circles the air around you, a whirl of twisting hair that’s tugged at the roots by white-knuckled fingers. Circling- pacing, almost, in the only way that she can. 

And you’re stuck. Too caught up to move and reach out again. You can’t calm her down. You’re not making this better. Again, you’re stuck, helpless, under the choking surety that you’re about to die.

You’re going to have a panic attack. You can feel it pressing in, waiting to start. But you can’t fix this if you’re just as overwhelmed as she is.

You think of a feather. 

You have a good imagination, so you take your time. It’s small. A little curved- from a wing, not the tail. Ruddy gold in color, almost taking on a brownish hue, but a little more...special. A little otherworldly. The quill- shaft, it’s got a stark gradient to it. Blending in with the vane near the top, lighter towards the downy ends. 

It drifts up and down in front of you. You let it drift- it lets itself drift. You follow it with your eyes, watch it shudder and jerk about as your breathing remains rapid, watch it still when you do. When your breathing eases, so does the path it makes-

“A feather.”

She sounds so bemused. Bewildered laughter scratching at the inside of your head, fracturing that gilded image until you’re forced to open your eyes, face to face with the damage that you’ve caused. Again, she’s so close. She’s so close, and getting closer.

“You think you can fix this with a  _ feather?  _ Oh, sweetie. Darling. You’ve hit a new low.” She collects herself, bit by bit. Ugly grimace smoothing into something colder, hair slowly untwisting itself, pooling about you. Blanketing out the rest of the world. Just you. Just her.

And her overwhelming disgust for you.

“This is pathetic, even for you.”

“I just want things to be  _ better _ !” The protest bursts out of you unthinkingly, prompted by the panic that continues to sizzle below the surface of your skin. She leans closer- you panic more. You’re not even sure you’re making any sense. “I just wanted to do better for both of us.”

“You don’t even know what  _ we ARE! _ ” 

“Why would I when you never explain anything?!”

“I shouldn’t have to!” Connection. Pressed up against you, nose to nose, her every word bites at your lips as you world drowns in the red of her eyes. “You think you can keep running away from me; that you’ll be  _ better  _ if I’m gone? You are _ not  _ above me.”

“I never said-”

“I’m still talking, sweetie.” She cuts you off, tone sickly sweet. Her forehead presses into your own hard enough to be painful, welcoming in the beginnings of a throbbing headache. “I played nice. I tried to help you. You still want to play the victim? Okay.”

She kisses you then. A mockery of softness, of darling affection. You whine, and it’s her laughter that bubbles across your lips this time, hand gripping your chin and keeping you still, lips moving against your own until you move back. Her lips are chapped. So are yours.

You can pretend, in the last vestiges of that connection, that something gentle exists there. Something genuine. Something that could salvage this. 

Until she breaks away.

“You can’t climb this mountain. It’s time to accept that.”

When you fall, you have difficulty deciding what hurts more. The cliffside crumbling beneath you, the terrorizing freefall- the shattered crystals, leaving cuts and gashes as they break across your body.

Or the moment she lets go.

* * *

You’ve lived and died through so many things on this mountain, it’s near impossible to be certain you aren’t dead. It’s the landscape that causes the most confusion, veering straight off the path of A Little Abnormal to something so excessively unique, you have to question its existence. 

If a place like this truly exists in the world, surely it wouldn’t be secret? It’d be the gathering place of a million scientists, all trying to figure out how this area could be. How had the crystals grown into such massive formations? How had it remained untouched by snow? How could there be so much free-flowing water, pouring through cracks and running down the grooves of solid, glassy ice?

You don’t feel alive. You don’t know, but you don’t think you lost consciousness. Every second of the fall seems burned into your mind, leaving your hands a scratched up, quaking mess that ensures your attempts to get to the surface are that much harder. If you’re dead, there’s no point to this. You don’t have anywhere you need to be.

…

There’s nothing else for you, though. You just have to keep breathing. You just have to step up. If you’re dead, there’s no point, it’s true, but you have to step up. It’s all you’ve got going for you, right now.

The experience leaves its mark. You stop once along the way, when you find some odd mass reflective enough to look at yourself. You’re a mess- the backs of your hands are littered with cuts, your clothes shredded. It’s lucky you didn’t fall face first. 

Realizing how easy you’ve had it bursts an emotional dam in you, sobbing out in relief and terror all in one. It’s over. You might not be alive, but you’re walking- but it’s over. You’re lower than you’ve ever been before.

“I hate her.” You say aloud. You try for conviction, pouring as much heat into it as possible. It still feels empty.

You don’t hate her. You don’t think you can, when you know why she is the way she is. She told you, you couldn’t do this. She told you it was a bad idea. 

More than that, she told you to stop blaming her. Repeatedly. You never actually did. Now...you’re thinking that may have been the truest point she’d tried to make.

Not that it matters.

“Focus, Madeline. You got what you wanted. She’s not here right now-”  _ And she’s not coming back _ sticks to the inside of your throat, refusing to come out. “And you’ve got bigger problems. Like going home...if you’re even alive.”

When you experience that weird sense of deja vu, toeing the edge of a cliff above in numerous crystal spikes, you almost start crying again. 

You can’t feel like you’ve just died if you’re already dead, can you?

For the most part, you concentrate on that. On the climb itself, until the shakes in your limbs are solely due to exertion; damp hair almost welcome with how quickly you begin to heat up. There’s so much ice around you, it can’t possibly be any warmer than the sides of the mountain itself, but you still feel hot. 

The next quick break has you searching through your pack, relieved to find that nothing is too worse for wear- a bit sodden, which makes you think the whole “water-resistant” feature the sales guy had sold you on was exaggerated  _ excessively,  _ but everything is sealed or can dry. With all the jumping around your doing, the clothes on your back aren’t all that wet anymore, anyway.

The last person you want to see after all this is granny. 

“Can we not?” You ask her, dumping your pack on the ground. The urge to crumple down next to it is sorely tempting. “Seriously? Can we just- not?”

“I didn’t say anything.” She smiles toothily, which is amazing, considering how few teeth she has left.

“You’re going to. That’s all you do, isn’t it? Follow people around and poke fun when they fail.” The accusation just makes her laugh, which doesn’t help her case, in your eyes. “You know what would be more helpful than that? Helpful advice- a few shortcuts  _ up  _ this stupid thing, instead of back to my car.”

“And ruin all your fun? I don’t think so.” She chuckles, shaking her head. You hate how knowing she is, the way her eyes seem to see right through you. “This mountain doesn’t pull any punches. You think it wouldn’t make things harder, if it thought I was helping you cheat your way past it? Think, dear.”

“I think you’ve been living here alone too long.” She cackles.

“You’ve already said that! It’s a shame you fell- I’m sure it stings, but trust me on this. Things would’ve been worse if I stuck my nose in where it didn’t belong.”

“If you say so.” You hate feeling that she’s right. “...Not that it matters.”

“Doesn’t it?” You shake your head, finally caving to the need to sit. After hours of climbing, the release of the burden on your legs is red hot relief. Standing is going to suck.

“Look where we are, lady. I didn’t climb anything. After all of that, I’m just- even lower. How far down are we? Don’t answer that.” You add hastily, eyeing her off. She closes her mouth, shoulders shaking with silent mirth. “She was right… I can’t do this. Even if I could, she’s not going to let me try again. There’s nothing for me here. I should just- go home.”

Stop being silly. Stop making mountains into some fantasy goal, where the summit casts all your problems to the winds.

“If you think that’s what you want, then I’ll take you back to your car,” Granny says, almost kindly. “There’s no shame in not being ready- plenty of kids come and go, never reaching the summit. Pity- I thought you’d get there.”

“What made you so sure?”

The lines of her face deepen when she smiles, turning her expression into something more flattering on a month old vegetable.

“You’re so angry at yourself! Figured you’d do it out of spite.” She laughs again at the look on your face, leaning into her cane. “If she’s what’s holding you back, then talk to her. Figure out why she’s so scared.”

Scared?

You almost burst out laughing, rejecting the notion without any thought. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She was the spiteful one- always jumping in when she wasn’t wanted, making a bad situation worse. And if she couldn’t do that? She made it confusing. You’d never seen her act uncertain about anything.

Except when she had. Crouched down in front of you, delicately questioning if it was as bad as she thought it was. She’d looked so afraid, you’d almost pitied her. The fact that it had been so much stronger than anything else you’d been trying to feel almost made you laugh.

She’d been afraid then. Afraid for you, not leaving until the very next day, when she knew you’d be okay. An impression of warmth lingering across your back as you woke, shaking off the last vestiges of fog from your mind.

You scared her last night, too. When you tried to cut her off, toss her aside. Abandon was the word she’d used; now that you think about it, it wasn’t wrong. You had been abandoning her. You can’t think of a moment in your life when you  _ weren’t  _ trying to abandon her.

“Oh my god.” You breathe out.

Granny laughs at you.

* * *

Finding her is far easier than you’d expected- but then, you’ve never tried. The lingering scent, or taste, or- feel of her emotions dusts the passages she’s taken, calling you in like a siren. She’s not hard to find, despite hiding herself even deeper beneath the ground than you’d fallen; you pass through deep waters that are suspiciously close to where you remember surfacing.

She let go, but she didn’t go far.

“Looking for me?” You never seen her on the ground without reason to be, before. Chin on her knees, she doesn’t even look at you, tone more akin to a bored drawl than the tension you expect- that you can see in the slow motions her hair makes across the ground. Like snakes, shifting into a defensive position. Waiting for when they’re forced to strike.

You deserve that.

“What do you want, Madeline? To say your goodbyes? There’s no need.”

“There is a need- but not for that.” You amend. Each step you take towards her is quiet; an attempt at being unthreatening as possible. You know better than to think her lack of response is ignorance. “I was wrong. I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”

“Could’ve fooled me!” She says chipperly. “Really, sweetheart- make up your mind. You've been  _ dying  _ to get away from me.”

“Yeah, literally.” The retort is a little sour- deep breaths, you urge yourself. This isn’t the time to let yourself be baited. “And we’ll talk about that, too, but… I want you to know I’m sorry.”

“Bullshit.” Being on a hair-trigger is a scary thing. Watching yourself go from sitting down, acting defeated- to floating in the air, towering over yourself by sheer will, it’s unpleasant.

It’s historical. You’ve done that to people in the past; to her, specifically. You almost did it to Theo. She’s been doing it to you too, which is a little ironic. Out of everyone, you’re the only person who keeps falling for your tricks.

“You don’t get to do this to me! You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to be on my side!” You’re also the only one who would try and use your own words against you. The grimace on your face is partially from guilt, but you two have a lot in common. A wide streak of anger is just the start.

“You’re not exactly innocent here, yourself!” Not the time. Not the time, Madeline. Get it together. Breathe. “But I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. You’re scared too.”

“Say that again and see what happens.” She hisses.

“We’re  _ both scared _ . I’m not saying you’re the only one.” You try to project some amount of firmness, standing your ground. It doesn’t stay for long. “That’s what got us down here in the first place. Look- we’re already at rock bottom. Can we just-”

“What? Talk?” She laughs, hair buffeting behind her in a nonexistent breeze. “Shall we sit down and braid each other’s hair?”

“It won’t stay up; I tried.” That settles her, some. Surprise sinks in, her aggressive stance deflating the slightest at your admittance to even giving it a try. “I want to talk to you. I want us to get through this together- out of here, together. Is that so bad?”

“I could drag you down more.” She threatens. A bluster, whilst she tries to build back up those walls. “I could drag us to the center of the Earth.”

“You could.” Seeing how much she’s capable of, you’re certain of that. And you’d be more afraid if it sounded like she wanted to. “But there’s no point. Talk to me… please.”

You take another step forward- it’s one too many. You can see the change now, when uncertainty turns to outright hostility, when her hair fans around her like the jagged spikes of crystals you’ve been slicing yourself on for the last few hours.

The picture of rejection. Or self-defense.

“Take another step closer and I’ll make you regret it.” She promises.

You force her to make good on that promise.

After years of trying to run away from them, you can say with confidence that this is what it feels like, to chase your fears. The reverse of a panic attack as your breaths stay even, running headfirst into a hailstorm of panic and increasing hysteria. It’s dark. Hot and cold, at the same time. There are so many jagged edges you can lose yourself to, but you don’t fail to notice how quickly those barbs move out of your way.

She’s still going to make a show of it, however. The deja vu you get around every corner keeps increasing, which would be enough to give you pause if you took the time to think about it. You’re a little outside of it all, right now. Stubborn as anything, with a streak of anger a mile wide- you don’t like to admit when you’re wrong, and you’re not wrong now.

She’s running, but she never goes far. She leaves you, but never for too long. Every time you worry she’s made a clean getaway, she’s always just one step ahead, watching you rush towards her with teeth bared and arms spread wide, seething emotions pouring out into blasts of pain and dabbles of anxiety that dance around you- into you when you’re not careful enough. Not quick enough. Not attentive enough.

You’re running through the story of your life in reverse. You’re bombarded with every panic attack you’ve ever had, every sinking feeling that something’s about to go wrong. You watch as each nonsensical outburst reverts to its most basic form- you break up with her, you scream down the phone because everything is getting to be too much. You’re walking away from her after agreeing to do something you don’t want to do, ignoring the knots of anxiety in your stomach that keep desperately shouting that something’s not right.

You freak out over dogs with only the vaguest memories of that time when you were eight. Grandmamma's St Bernard was too excited to have guests, and knocked you down. You fell wrong on your arm.

You got stuck in an elevator during a blackout. Years later, you still seize up when the lights don’t work. 

You can see when the hurt is coming, and you don’t take the time to acknowledge it. Anxiety is heavy on your shoulders. You ignore it, and ignore it, and it bursts. It stops being something you can make sense of. It stops being rational.

She’s not being rational, right now. That’s your fault. Years and years of pushing her down and away have left a kind of anxiety that you won’t fix by chasing her through crystalline caverns and jumping down seemingly endless holes. You hate rejection, and you’ve rejected her more times than anyone else. You don’t like being alone, and she’s been alone her entire life.

At least you understand why she thinks you deserve this; all the panic and frustration that’s been dogging your steps these past few days. You’ve only ever listened when she was too loud to drown out, the purpose of such loudness lost, but the relief of finally catching your attention addictive, at worst. You clamber up walls as rocks fall from the ceiling- you leap from pulsing ice as it’s flung back and forth across the room- and you know that chasing her isn’t going to begin to touch all the things you have to talk about, but it’s a start, and you have to prove it’s real.

This isn’t going to change unless you prove you won’t let go.

“I did you a favor.”

When she starts shouting at you, you know she’s getting tired. 

“ _ You’re not a mountain climber.”  _

You are too. 

“ _ I’m just trying to help you! _ ”

So it’s helpful, then, that her words carry so much weight to them. Just the fuel you need to keep going.

“If you’d just listened to me, none of this would’ve happened!” You wish you had. You wish you’d recognized her years ago- there’s so much more that you could’ve avoided. There are so many hardships you pushed yourself into, just to prove that you were capable. The mountain must look like just one of many, stupid things you’ve done, just to prove you’re something you’re not.

It was one of many, stupid things you’ve done, just to prove you’re something you’re not.

“I know!” Your voice comes in loud bursts, breath too heavy for anything else. “But I can’t- change that! And you can’t either!”

“Then  _ stop trying to make it happen! _ ” The words come with such heavy inertia that you can’t keep your footing- which works, as it’s the only way you’re fast enough to avoid the rock that drops down from the ceiling. You never even saw it coming.

You never did see it coming- multiple times, you suppose.

“I’m not going to regret this decision.”

“Why?!” She’s losing altitude- just skimming over the ground, strands of her stuck to her forehead. She’s going to run you both into the ground, at this rate. “What good has being stubborn ever done for you?”

“I got to meet you, didn’t I?!” Your words distract her enough to steal her attention to what’s behind her- when she stumbles, you’re ready. You don’t think, you just act.

When she falls, you’re right there with her, bodies colliding with each other- and the water. 

It’s not that deep- maybe a foot or so, but with your arms trapping hers to her side, you can’t gain enough traction to push yourself up. She thrashes beneath you, a whirl of purple shades that distort behind foaming water and the bubbles escaping your mouth, but you won’t let go. Whatever you do, you can’t let go. You don’t have another five minutes of running around like a lunatic in you- this is it. You have to keep her here now, or you’re going to lose her forever.

You don’t realize just how stupid you’re being until you start inhaling water, body reflexively trying to wretch it out as hands grip the arms of your jacket, and heave you upright.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” She hisses, shaking you. The jerking motion helps; you’ve got a few mouthfuls of water to cough out, collapsing against her when you’re done. All of this and the most deadly enemy in your way was a foot of water on the ground.

…

You push your face into her shoulder, gasps turning to laughter.

“Sweetheart, you’re cracked. You’re actually  _ cracked. _ ”

“You saved my life.” You reply, giggles refusing to subside. “You killed me a dozen times, and you won’t let me  _ drown myself _ .”

“And that’s funny now?”

“That’s  _ hilarious _ .”

She doesn’t share your amusement, but she doesn’t let you go, not even when you start to calm. The water is freezing, but you’re in no hurry to move. You’ll stand when you’ve figured things out- or if she can prove she won’t run.

Same thing.

“You never died.” She tells you- the fire in her words is gone. What remains is awkward, a hesitance born from failing to think you’ll believe her. “All those times- they weren’t death. You’d get hurt, so I’d just-”

“You took me back?” That is a surprise. “I thought the mountain was doing it.”

“The mountain gave me this body,” She reminds you. “So- yes. I guess it did. I wanted you to go home, not a hospital. And… I wanted to scare you.”

“But not that much.” The deja vu. There were probably memories to go with it. And if you don’t have them, then-

“Yeah…” The arms around you tighten. You don’t complain.

You don’t even want to.

“...You win, Madeline.” The words should be a victory. They might have been once, if you’d heard them before. Before the mountain, before the fall. The chase. You wouldn’t have cared, but now, you don’t fail to hear the defeat in her tone. It’s so palpable, you can feel it. “ If you don’t need me, I’ll try and stay out of your way. I’ll leave you alone.”

“I already told you I don’t want that.” It’s cold. She isn’t much warmer, but wherever the two of you touch, there’s the potential of heat. You push your face into her shoulder, willing your nose to stop freezing over. If you don’t have a cold by the end of this trip, you’ll be sorely surprised. “I get it now. I get why the mountain decided to separate us.”

“Oh, like how you got it before?” She reminds you, the eternal skeptic. 

“Better. I understand it better.” You amend. Turning your head, you glance up at her, unsurprised to find her looking back. “What I said before was wrong. It was all wrong. I really am sorry.”

You wait, watching the shifts to her expression as she struggles to formulate a response. When she does, your heart is torn. “...You hurt me.” 

You’re proud that she managed to say it. There’s a lot of vulnerability there- the most fragile olive branch she could have extended. She’s giving you that much, even with the expectation that you’ll let her down.

“I did.” You acknowledge. Outloud, because despite how easily she can search your mind, it needs to be said. You want to make it real. “You hurt me, too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think either of us can say what we did was okay, but we can do better.” Reluctantly, you sit up. You want to be eye to eye with her again- you have to reinforce that you’re meeting her on the same level. “When we climb the mountain, we’ll have time to talk about this. We can work through it.”

“You still want to do this? After everything that happened, is it worth it?” Her doubt resonates. You have the questions, nearly exact in their wording. Is it worth it to try again? If this is what the mountain throws at the unprepared, what could it throw at someone ready for it?

You haven’t died, but you’ve come close. You’ve come close more than either of you want to admit. If you keep going, there’s no guarantee that death isn’t what awaits you by the end. 

But you want to believe there’s more than that.

“If this mountain can tear us apart, then it can bring us back together.” You say, resolute. “Granny said this is a place of healing. Healing sucks, but it gets better. We’re already getting better, aren’t we? We’re talking now.”

Gently, you free yourself from her grasp, taking her hands into your own. 

“Let’s keep talking. If we work together, we’ll have so much more time. I want… to know you better. I want to listen to you. I want to know what you want. Are you willing to try that?”

She still looks doubtful, eyes darting from your face to your hands, torn. For the first time, you wish that this connection could go two ways- that you could see what was going on in her head, so you could reassure her. If you knew what worries she had, you could help temper her fears, you know it.

But it’s better that you can’t. If this is going to work, you have to let her do things in her own time. Whatever she decides to do is going to be her decision.

You can be a better person. It starts with taking care of yourself.

“...I want to get out of this water.”

You laugh.

“See? We already agree on something.” You have to let her go again to stand, but she’s quick to catch your elbow as you stumble, leading you out of the water and into a small patch of sunlight, peeking in from a hole in the ceiling. Your hair is drenched, weighing down against your back and putting way too much pressure on your neck, pulling a sour expression from you as your hands fly up to sort the mess.

She chuckles, watching on as you wring out your hair.

“We look like drowned rats.” She tells you, copying your motions. Grinning over at you with enough...niceness mixing into her features, that she almost looks kind. Or alive, in a way; happier and healthier and maybe just shying somewhere close to the vicinity of attractive.

“And no dry change of clothes either. I know, I didn’t prepare for this.” Your voice is wry, heart full of- fullness. Like flying the Northern Lights, except your feet are still on the ground. And she’s looking as happy as you are. “Hey.”

It’s impulsive, but you press your hand to her cheek, ignoring her sudden stillness in favor of moving forward, pressing your lips together. Her lips are still awfully chapped, but the icy water smoothes them down a bit, making it all the easier to angle your head, and kiss her properly.

That warm fullness in your chest expands, overflowing into a tightness that can’t contain itself. It snaps like a rubber band.

And she’s gone.

Not really. There’s no longer someone standing before you, nothing for your hand and lips to meet, but you can feel her in every fiber of your being, mutual surprise mingling alongside an overwhelming sense of delight. You thought you’d felt full before- now, you feel whole, the world tilting on its axis to a sense of rightness you don’t feel fit to describe, or even contemplate.

“...Oh.” You breathe out. Your hand is still hovering in midair, and you turn your palm over, fascinated. Your skin is still the same, unfortunate peach tone it’s always been, a little too prone to redness when afflicted by extreme conditions- like freezing water, for example. Your veins stand out starkly, deep blue and purple against a dusting of pinky red.

And your hair is dry. Twisting round to look behind you, you get lost in your reflection, instead. Looking over your new style in a rather nonplussed manner.

Bubblegum pink. It really shouldn’t look good on you, but you’re still smiling.

“Well,” You manage, not sure which of you is thinking the words that come out of your mouth. “What do you know?”

You  _ are  _ attractive when you smile.

**Author's Note:**

> So for the first time in a while, I got to explore something on an almost daily basis; it was nice to keep working on and touching up this piece, figuring out what worked and what didn’t, whilst also knowing that I was indulging in something solely for myself. The last few weeks of writing this have been really good; it’s hard to let go.
> 
> I really appreciated how frank and explorative this game was with mental health, particularly in how it did acknowledge that panic attacks, at their core, subsist off your basic defence mechanisms. Exploring panic attacks (not only what it means to be in the thick of them, but how you feel after) was something very personal and rewarding for me.
> 
> It was also really interesting to explore that aspect of different situations exacerbating issues, even if they aren’t the root of the problem- which the game touches on a little. Exploring it myself, I can see why there wasn't a great emphasis placed on it. It’s really touch and go to write about how a situation can worsen something without blaming it entirely.
> 
> Lastly, I did want to note that I really did not want to approach this ship from an immediately healthy standpoint. Their relationship is not healthy. Part of what I hope to explore in future is the transition from unhealthy to something closer to reasonable, though the overall goal of this ship to me isn’t so much a “and then they marry”, more than learning self-love in a bit more of a literal sense.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading.


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